Media Reform & the Fairness Doctrine

The Communist-influenced "Media Reform" Movement
Accuracy in Media, January 20, 2007 by Cliff Kincaid - HT: Stella

Having previously reported on the participation of Revolutionary Communist Party members at the "National Conference on Media Reform," I can now confirm that members of the old Soviet-line Communist Party USA were there, too. But it gets even more interesting. It turns out that one of the founders of the group sponsoring the conference is personally rubbing elbows with identified communists in a broader movement designed to impeach President Bush and force a U.S. defeat in Iraq.

In a message to supporters of the People's Weekly World (PWW), the CPUSA paper, editor Teresa Albano reports that she attended the event along with two St. Louis PWW bureau members. She says, "What a conference it was! Over 3,000 people attended―all concerned about the state of democracy in this country now that Big Media Conglomerates control most of the political debate, culture and stories that Americans see, hear and read everyday. It's a new and blossoming movement…"

In her article about the event, supposedly dedicated to "media reform," she reports, "Many conference speakers celebrated the defeat of the Bush administration in the November elections. All stayed on message—targeting the big corporate and right-wing interests that have taken over the news and other sources of information. Speakers also blasted the commercial media's role in the run-up to the Iraq invasion." "With a new Congress," she added, "the conference touched on legislative possibilities for media reform. Rep. [Maurice] Hinchey said legislation governing media reform is possible in this session of Congress, but only with continued public pressure. Hinchey sponsored the Media Ownership Reform Act, a bill that would rein in media monopolies and reinstate the Fairness Doctrine that requires broadcasters to present issues in an all-sided manner. That kind of equal access, he said, was 'wiped out' in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan."

As I previously reported, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) was at the conference, maintaining a booth and passing out literature about its leader, Bob Avakian, who thinks the current leadership in Communist China has sold out to the capitalist West. The RCP is regarded as the largest Maoist party in the U.S., and Mao is considered the greatest mass murderer in history. Continued...